


Destroy the World

by ljs



Series: the Art World AU [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-07 23:39:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3187565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A follow-up to "The Persistence of Memory", part of the Art World AU.</p>
<p>The Doctor is a painter, who's about to have a retrospective of his work open at the Tate Modern (curated by his friend Clara Oswald). His old lover and fellow artist and colleague Missy makes a threat. He knows she likes destruction. It all goes back to Gallifrey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Darting into his studio with a dash and a mad laugh, Missy announces, “I’m going to destroy the world, Doctor. “

“Are you.” He doesn’t look up from his current project. He’s rather proud that his hand is steady as he shades a curve on a clock-moon – but of course she’s been popping in on him like this for six weeks or so, he’s grown accustomed, and he’s steadier now in all ways.

“I thought you’d be more surprised.” Her lower lip trembles in a perfect imitation of distress. However, a quick glance at her eyes – blue, bright, mad -- tells him she’s laughing.

He shifts his pencil, shades darker. “If you want to surprise me, you shouldn’t wear those heels. I heard you coming down the hall.”

She does a little dance, clattering away in a ridiculous faux-tap routine which is nothing but noise and jitters. “I meant the destroying-the-world thing, silly boy.” She leaps toward him. He braces, but she doesn’t touch him. It’s actually more disconcerting to have her lean in, five inches away, and breathe in the general direction of his ear, “Do you remember Gallifrey?”

Hitting him would have been less painful. But --

“Of course,” he says through tightened lips.

“Going to be better than that,” she says, already moving away. “Just you wait.”

As soon as he hears her door shut and the muffled voice of Seb or Chang or whichever assistant she’s abusing this week, he goes to his own door and shuts it. Then, leaning against it, he closes his eyes. Even when he and Missy have…connected in the past decades, he’s tried not to think about Gallifrey. But maybe he should.

He sees in his mind that old loft in the neighbourhood where he and Missy did their growing-up, all those years ago – after Glasgow and in London, living on next to nothing, working odd jobs, and making art. The loft had belonged to a mate of theirs, Rassilon, who’d been working on a tabletop game that later would make him rich. But at that point Rassilon was mostly gone, “into the matrix” as he’d used to say, and he’d let the Doctor and Missy use the loft for a show.

Missy, mad as she was, had fucked up the name of the show when she’d had posters printed – not Gallimaufry as they’d agreed on, but Gallifrey. Who the fuck knew how she’d come up with that misspelling, but it didn’t matter. For the rest of bloody time his first show would be named Gallifrey.

A show where, yes, he’d sold four canvases (which was four more than he’d ever sold before, and with which cash he ran away from his boring job at the art academy), but also a show where at the height of the action, with loads of punters and art-world stars and that bad punk band consisting of some of the Doctor’s mates ‘deconstructing’ David Bowie tunes, Missy had taken the Doctor’s favourite canvas off the wall, bashed it over her head so that she was part of the painting, screamed “Delete, exterminate, _rule the world with art_! Look into the abyss and _feel_ it!” and then punched either Gilbert or George, the Doctor couldn’t remember which one.

She’d claimed it was performance art. Right. At least the journos had bought the story.

But when at the end of the evening he’d pulled her into the corner to shout at her properly, she’d pushed him against a floor-to-ceiling window and assaulted his mouth, bruising him, and then let him go. “Did you like that, my dear?”

“No,” he’d managed. His hands had still been flat on the frost-touched glass where he’d tried and failed to brace himself. Whenever they’d hooked up in the years after that, he could feel the cold of that night in his palms when he touched her. He can feel the same cold now.

She’d laughed. “Bet you did. And did you look into the abyss?” Then, whispering, “Bet you did. I wanted you to.”

“Why are you doing this?” he’d said, baffled and wounded.

She hadn’t looked mad, then. She’d suddenly looked heartsick. “Because you’re my friend, and you have to let me.”

If she’s talking about Gallifrey now, two days before the opening reception of his retrospective at the Tate Modern…he might be in trouble. Really serious trouble.

He can feel time widening so fast he might fall in.  
……………………………………………

The first thing he does is text his wife.

After their surprise month together – River having had to close the dig for those days because of potential flooding in the valley where she’s working – she went back to finish up. He still feels that ache afresh whenever he walks into their little house in Marston or their flat in Chelsea near World’s End. Communication is a bit dodgy, but sending the text makes him feel a bit better.

_A crazy woman is threatening me. Oddly, it’s not you. Miss you._

The second thing he does is get in his blue Audi and drive through the cloudy afternoon in his own inimitable style (“Raggedy man, can’t you ever do anything in a straight line?” Amy says to him sometimes) back to London. He doesn’t stay at home, however. He leaves his car there and then takes the Tube to Clara and Danny’s place in Islington.

When Clara answers the door, he says, “Have you heard anything about my show?”

She pushes hair out of her eyes impatiently. “Yes. The publicity mill has been working, there’s been press ever—“

“—Not that!” He brushes past her into their lounge, then hesitates. “Is P.E. here?”

“He’s staying in College tonight,” she says. “What has that got to do with anything?”

He fidgets around, testing the various bits and bobs on her mantel. (He doesn’t move them, however. Clara Oswin Oswald is a control freak beyond all previously recorded control-freakery, one doesn’t mess with her things.) He can feel her watching him, but he’s not ready to turn around just yet.

Her cartoon-owl clock hoots. _Who, who, who,_ it says. But of course he knows who.

He says suddenly, “Have there been any rumours about Missy Masterson lately?”

“No,” Clara says. Her voice is suddenly serious. “But her assistant Chang was at the museum today, I saw him right after lunch. Said he needed to check on her work.”

Which is her installation _Abyss_ , he knows, housed in a room in the Poetry and Dream space, not all that far from his exhibition. “Did he have his laptop with him?”

“Yes.” She frowns. “But so what? Do you think they threaten your stuff?”

“Actual question, or rhetorical?”

“Rhetorical. Oh _no,_ it’s rhetorical.” She sits down heavily on a pouffe which is as round as her face. He can see the dire possibilities take shape in her mind.

So he takes charge. “Okay, okay. Missy said something to me today about destroying the world. I assume she’s talking about art, it’s her pattern. And, well, well, she said something else that recalled her work Abyss. So I think security might need to be informed, and if you could ring P.E. and ask him to go round to the studio and see if she’s still there or elsewhere….”

But Clara says, “Wait. What’s the link between her comment and your assumption? Is it Gallifrey?”

For the second time that day he feels like he’s been struck. His voice is sharper than he might wish – “Why do you say that?”

She gives him her patented ‘stupid-Doctor’ look. “Have you ever even _read_ the monographs about you?”

“No. They’re just stories. Critics write fiction.”

“Thank you very much,” she says dryly – which reminds him too late that she’s written at least three well-received books of art criticism. “The point is, Doctor, that the ‘stories’ all agree that there is a connection between Gallifrey, which you never talk about, and _Abyss_.”

“It was a long time ago,” he says.

Clara gazes at him, clearly waiting for him to add something. He’s not going to. Only one other person besides Missy and himself knows all about the specific painting destroyed that night, and she’s currently in… wherever… digging up things.

Never marry an archaeologist. They dig up all sorts of things better left buried.

But he knows he keeps information too much to himself, he’s trying to do better – so he equivocates. “You know Missy likes to break things. She calls it ‘looking into the abyss.’ So, yes, I’m afraid she’s going to destroy my show, or at least the opening of it, like she destroyed my painting.”

“But _why_?”

The obvious obnoxious answer is _why not_ , but he does Clara the courtesy of taking her seriously. “Because of time folding in on itself.” When Clara looks confused, he adds, “Because she and I come from the same place. Because we were friends once.”

…………………………………………………

While Clara makes her calls (including asking Danny to check the Doctor’s studio, even if all the works for the show are already at the Tate), the Doctor goes to the museum himself.

It’s crowded when he gets there. One of Clara’s juniors sees him in the Turbine Room and waves. He nods but hurries on, alone in the teeming mass of humans visiting the space. When he gets to the portal for his show, he waves a card at the bored guard and goes into a place that’s empty aside from art.

Clara has done twelve groupings of his work, each one marked only by its number. One, the first grouping, is what she’s collected from Gallifrey. At his insistence she left the arrangement slightly imbalanced, despite the injury it did her sense of order. He didn’t tell her that the open space would stand for his destroyed canvas.

He puts his hand delicately on that empty space, and thinks about _Burn Time_ , about a clock and a plain (right, slightly derivative of that Dali work) and blue flames around the edges. Fire destroys, but from the ashes rises new growth.

River is digging at a site of an Iron Age settlement revealed after a forest fire leveled old, old trees in a rocky enclosed valley. Stormcage, she calls it.

He pulls out his mobile at the thought of his wife. There’s a text waiting.

_How dare another woman threaten you! (Missy, yes?) Do you need me to come for the show?_

He smiles, a little reluctantly. She’s a warrior, his River. Scary as all hell, bit of a psychopath. Sometimes he thinks he shouldn’t like that quality as much as he does, but she’s made for him.

_Stay where you are, River. I can do this by myself._

Almost immediately, a reply. _Never travel alone, sweetie. I’ve told you that before._

He snorts and sends his own reply. _I’m never alone, honey. I always hear you._

“Doctor?” says Clara from behind him.

He turns. “Yes, yes, yes, shut up.”

“I hadn’t said anything yet.”

“I can hear you thinking, Clara. It’s annoying.”

She points a small, imperious hand at the door. “Go. I’m locking up and engaging security. We’re going to make sure this exhibition goes well.”

He gives her a salute – she hates that – and goes out of the hall, out of the museum, and onto the Millennium Footbridge.

It’s getting dark. St Paul’s, the focal point at the other end of the bridge, looms bright in the dusk. Missy once staged the most appalling desecration-performance there; the memory still makes him shudder.

The Doctor stops in the centre of the bridge, poised between the old and the new, and leans on the railing. He looks out at the Thames rushing below him, its tidal ripples catching all available light. Only an hour or two before low tide, he thinks.

He leans over a little further, digging his boot-tips into the bridge for safety, and gazes at the rushing water. It’s going so terribly fast.

Two days until his exhibition opens, he tells himself. Nothing’s going to happen.

Probably.


	2. Chapter 2

Tweet from @TateModern: **TimeSpaceCompanions. Exhibition of work by the Doctor. Opens to the public tomorrow. Reception tonight, invitation only.** 5 Favorites, 12 Retweets.

Reply from @MistressOfAll: @TateModern: **Did my invitation get lost in the post? Be nice. Or you’ll be sorry.**

The exhibition space is full of people – beautifully or madly dressed, narrow-eyed and judgemental, loquacious and buzzing on art and free drinks. It’s all cacophony and laughter, and the Doctor would like to get in his ancient blue car and run to the furthest ends of the universe.

But he’s here, and he’s trapped, and if only he didn’t have this nagging dread….

He takes out his antique cigarette case – which holds jelly babies, not cigarettes; River had a fresh batch delivered this morning, indulging both his nerves and his well-documented sweet tooth – and fumbles for his fifth treat of the night.

“Oi, Art Boy,” comes a familiar voice before he can pop the jelly baby in his mouth. “Ease up on the sugar.”

“Shut up, Donna,” he says, smiling.

Donna Noble had been his PA some years ago. Her spiky good sense and mouthiness suited him right down to the ground, and if she hadn’t had that flare-up of neurological trouble, she’d be his assistant still. But now that she’s better she’s found a new job working on the annual Frieze London festival, and he doesn’t get to see her as much as he’d like.

“Don’t tell me to shut up,” she says now, and punches him lightly in the shoulder. Then, quietly (or quietly for Donna), “You okay? Any sign of the crazy lady?”

“No. Seems all right so far.”

“Well, don’t _jinx_ it.” She rolls her eyes and punches him again before adding, “You need my help, you just shout.”

“Yes. And same to you.”

“As if I’d ever need your help,” she snorts, “you’re mental,” and she heads off toward the tenth grouping of his work, where his friends Martha Jones and Mickey Smith stand in front of a painting they’d sat for. Next to them a painting of Rose Tyler, the Doctor’s one-time muse, is partially obscured – which makes an odd kind of sense, as she’s lived on the other side of the world so long with that bloke who looks a little like he used to.

He eats his jelly baby and then puts away his cigarette case. Any moment now Clara’s going to descend upon him and make him _mingle_. He used to be so much better at that, but now he just wants the evening to be over.

A flash of movement near the door catches his eye. Danny Pink is saying something to Rory, who’s been standing guard at the door. Fucking ridiculous, considering the security the Tate’s laid on, but somehow Amy and Clara got it in their heads that their fellas would be useful backup for the professionals. Yes, right, there Rory goes, and Danny takes his place as watch-dog.

The Doctor thinks sourly about the apology he’s going to have to give P.E. after this evening is done. He hates being wrong about someone in public.

At that moment someone brushes against him, and he almost jolts out of his Doc Martens. (Amy had chosen his jacket and shirt for tonight. Apparently, eminent artists weren’t allowed to wear their favourite holey sweaters to their own bloody exhibitions -- but he’d insisted on no tie and these boots.) When he turns, however, he relaxes. “Hullo, Sarah Jane.”

“Hullo, you grumpy old man,” she says, and clasps his arm above the elbow, as if to keep him there.

“You’re older than I am,” he says, but covers her hand with his.

“Your manners continue to deteriorate with age,” she says severely, then leans her head against his shoulder.

They’d been lovers long ago, for a short golden time, but it just hadn’t worked out. They’d had a fight during a trip to Scotland, and he’d left her in Aberdeen, sort of by accident; it had taken her two decades to forgive him. Even during their estrangement she’d been scrupulous about conflict of interest: although she’s been the _Guardian_ art critic for years, she’s always had one of her juniors cover his shows. It means a great deal, more than he’d like to say, that she’s come tonight.

Of course she’s as bright as a blade, so it doesn’t surprise him that she then says softly, “Let’s talk about Missy. Have you followed her career lately?”

“Other than noticing she’s moved in down the hall at Ruskin, no.”

“So typical.” Sarah Jane reaches into her pocket and retrieves her mobile. A couple of one-handed manoeuvres, and she shows him a photograph of burnt paper aloft over a dark… hole, perhaps.

Burning. _Burn Time_. But she won’t replicate that for tonight, it’s not her style. She can be obvious – she wants to be caught, he sometimes thinks – but for Missy, there’s always a new kind of destruction to glorify.

What he says, however, is an almost casual “Another variation on an abyss.”

“This from the man obsessed with time-pieces,” returns Sarah Jane. “I’m assuming you have some ideas about what this means.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

She nods. “Right, okay. I wanted to make sure. So where’s River?”

“She’s—“ And then he stops, detaches from the conversation, turns on his heel a couple of times, waves his hands. He is starting to make connections. He wishes briefly for a sketchpad or chalkboard, he likes to visualize his thoughts, but, “Water.”

Sarah Jane gazes at him, her sharp eyes perplexed. “I meant your wife, not an actual body of--”

“Shut up, I know what you meant.” He’s moving; she isn’t. He throws over his shoulder, “You always did show me things I needed to see, Sarah Jane. Thanks.”

And then he’s pushing through the crowd, only half-acknowledging the greetings and comments thrown his way, not bothering to hide the flinches when strangers touch him. He needs to talk to Clara.  
Who’s coming to meet him, her brows drawn together in a frown. “I know that face,” Clara says, “what’s wrong?”

“Has anybody checked the sprinkler system here?” he says.

She stares at him. It’s her idiot-Doctor look again. “Because--?”

“Because if it’s hackable, and Chang was here two days ago, there could have been tampering with the system. Missy could very likely be moving on from fire to water.”

He has the satisfaction of seeing her blink at that, then go for her mobile. “Stay,” she says to him – control-freakery again – and jabs something on her phone.

But he can’t wait for Clara to go through official security channels. He feels the truth of his understanding of Missy in his gut: it’s falling through a hotel room door in Miami with her arms around his neck, it’s balancing against a cold window while she kiss-fights him, it’s her standing with his broken canvas around her neck while his world for just that moment cracks down the centre of everything and a clock stops striking.

She was his friend, once upon a time. Time has passed.

At that moment, from his position at the door Danny Pink calls “Doctor!”

A man with a neat goatee and white-streaked black hair, impeccable in a black suit, is coming in the door. Except of course it’s not a man. Even at this distance the Doctor can see the bright, blue, mad sparkle of Missy’s eyes.

Danny wisely has let her through – no sense in him causing a scene. That’s for the Doctor –

Who hurries through a quietening crowd toward Missy. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do when he gets there, but he has at least ten seconds to figure it out.

She sees him. Smiling, she strokes her false whiskers; the red fingernails look like bloodied daggers against the coarse black and white. “Hi, hi, hi, darling boy!” she says.

He stops a few feet away from her. She uses the whole world for her art, whether installation or performance, he reminds himself. A scene is what she wants.

His palms feel that frosted glass again, the confusion and betrayal. But he says calmly, “Not invited, Missy.”

“And me your oldest friend!” she sing-songs, loud enough for everyone around her to hear. Murmurs rise, a current of questions and alarm. She smiles.

“Still not invited.” His fingers flutter, the only sign of nerves he will allow himself. This is too important.

She leans forward. He notices absently that she’s painted her lips the same blood-red as her nails, a gleam in her obscured features. “Scared?”

“Disappointed. You disappoint me.”

That break in their usual call-and-response throws her off for a second, but she recovers. Her voice is nasty and edged when she says, “You don’t get to be disappointed in me.”

“Too late. I am.” He shoves his hands into his pockets, revealing the red lining in his coat as he does. He sees her glance, understands that she’s making her own connection: the colour is a thread for both of them. Passion. Art. Fire.

And even as he thinks that, she pulls a lighter out of her pocket. It’s Rassilon’s – left behind when he went into the matrix. The Doctor remembers the day Missy had scooped it up from the ashes of the fireplace at the loft. It had been only a few hours before Gallifrey, actually.

She raises her eyebrows suggestively and flicks her finger against the lighter.

“I know what you’re doing,” he says, and then, impatiently, “And take off that rubbish beard, Missy, it looks fucking ridiculous.”

A deeper glitter in mad blue. “Be nice, or you’ll be sorry,” she purrs, and flame sparks alive and then dies.

“Right, seriously. You’re going to try to create a bit of smoke, maybe destroy something small, and then turn on the water to drown everything, affect canvases and signage and the lot,” he says. There’s another murmur from the crowd at that.

And he realizes that he is surrounded by friends. Amy, tall and fierce, on his left side, with Rory and his well-hidden ferocity of his own a bulwark for her; Clara, tiny and fierce, on his right, with Donna, Martha, and Mickey behind her. Sarah Jane’s coolly taking notes for a story that will likely not reflect particularly well on Missy. Danny’s still behind Missy, but next to him –

“You’ve got that pudding-brain Seb here with a tablet to set off the water?” the Doctor says. “Really? He’s so nothing, he’s, he’s a _knitted scarf_.”

Amy says _pianissimo_ , echoed by Donna somewhat more _forte_ , “Knitted scarf? What?”

“I don’t know. It just came to me.” The Doctor glances at Clara. “Anyway I’m insulted, and also, any chance of the troops you rang arriving any time soon?”

Laughing, holding up her lighter, Missy spins away toward Seb. Danny blocks her way (oh, yes, apologies will need to be forthcoming), and she spins back around, caroling “Now, my little helper! Now!”

A hush falls, Missy alone laughing. Seb, visibly nervous, presses something on his tablet.

Nothing happens.

“Am I going to have to hurt you? _Now_!” Missy shouts.

“I’m trying,” Seb says, fiddling with it again, “I’m trying, I swear.”

“Keep trying, little man,” says a familiar, much-loved voice. “If it amuses you, keep trying. But it won’t be any use.”

The crowd parts as River saunters through. The Doctor sees only her – wild hair, perfect makeup, a long slinky dress she’d bought for their honeymoon, that wicked-smart smile. Then he sees the laptop in her hands.

“All taken care of?” Clara says brightly.

“Yes. All intrusive and ineffectual hacks neutralized,” River says. “And hello, sweetie.”

“Hi, honey. You do like an entrance.” It’s not easy to kiss a woman who’s holding a large-ish electronic device in her hands, but he manages. At the first touch of her mouth, some indefinable, painful knot in his stomach dissolves.

“You taste of those damn jelly babies,” she whispers.

“I’ll thank you properly for them later.”

Before he can say more, the laptop is gently drawn out from between them. “Excuse me,” Martha says. “Just wanted to make this safe before reunion… whatevers.”

“This is one of _your_ laptops?” the Doctor says, slightly horrified. Martha is in some top-secret medical unit (one run by an absolute lunatic, Jack Harkness, who if he hadn’t had a date with his Welsh fella would be here trying to have it off with any sentient being under the age of seventy). Her laptops cost untold thousands of pounds and probably contain the cures for thirty-six diseases hitherto untreatable.

“Yeah. I trust your missus even if I wouldn’t trust you with it,” Martha says, and winks at River.

Then, a chorus from nearby: “What do you want us to do with her?”

Mickey and Rory have Missy firmly in hand, with Donna and Amy hovering menacingly. The Doctor personally would be more frightened of Noble and Pond, ginger super-heroines in the making, than of Smith and Williams, but anyway – “Let her go.”

He does nip forward and take Rassilon’s lighter before they do, however.

She stands alone. The art crowd has gone back to being narrow-eyed and judgemental, loquacious and buzzing on art, free drinks, and fresh gossip. Seb is already almost swallowed by said crowd, muttering something about art being its own excuse.

So young, that boy. The Doctor and Missy know better.

“Gallifrey’s done, Missy,” he says as gently as he can.

“Maybe.” Missy takes off the false beard, wincing as glue leaves her sensitive skin. Once freed of the comedy whiskers, she gazes at him. “But I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know. The studio just down the hall.”

“Maybe not – if we press charges, that is,” Clara says. She is all too serious.

“No need,” the Doctor says, his eyes never leaving Missy’s. River is a warm safe presence at his side.

“I hate your being so fucking magnanimous when you win a teeny-tiny battle,” Missy grumbles, then looks up at him from under her lashes. She is still bright and mad, still intent on destroying the world.

“And if she ever hurts someone else’s show, I will blame you,” Clara says to him.

“She probably will,” the Doctor says. “But the art world’s safe tonight.”  
……………………………………………….

Hours later River says, “Why did you let her go, Doctor?” Then she holds out her glass for the last of the champagne she’d stashed in the fridge when she’d changed at their flat earlier.

The Doctor drains the bottle into her glass, shoves it back in the ice bucket, and then drops down beside her on their sofa. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Criminal mischief at the very least,” she says.

He smooths her dress over her thigh. It starts as a delaying tactic, but he finds himself enjoying the sensation of slippery fabric moving over her firm muscle, over his warm River. If he follows the slide of it a little higher, just there at that delicious valley between her legs –

And she grabs his hand. “Answer me before you carry on with that.”

“You’ve never said _that_ before.” He flops onto his back and puts his socked feet up on the coffee table. His petulance is only half-feigned.

But from this angle he can see the night sky out the French doors to their postage-stamp-size terrace. Light pollution means the stars are obscured, but he knows they’re spinning above the world. He’s always been fascinated by stars.

“Doctor?” River kisses his temple, lightly but insistently.

He takes her hand and links their fingers. He only touches people he loves – bit phobic in his old age -- but when he loves them, they stay loved. He can’t express that without hurting her, so he says only, “She was my friend once.”

“And betrayal isn’t enough to turn you away,” she says. Then, so quiet he can barely hear her: “I thank the universe for that, sweetie. I do.”

“Shut up,” he says, “it’s not the same thing at all,” and cups the back of her head with his free hand. Her curls allow his fingers to tunnel in, to find new ways to her.

She smiles just before he kisses her, so he can taste her amusement as well as the wine. As they kiss, she leans further over so that he’s blanketed by curves and slipperiness and River-warmth.

Before he closes his eyes, he sees the haze of night sky beyond the glass, and as River gets on top of him, he sees for a moment in his mind an explosion of stars, constellation upon constellation, an expansion of all known worlds.

Missy can’t destroy the world. She can’t even touch the stars.

But he can.


End file.
